Presently, there are two basic types of land mobile communication systems; trunked communication systems and conventional communication systems. Each of these land mobile communication systems comprises a plurality of communication units organized into a number of communication groups, a limited number of communication resources that are transceived via a plurality of base stations, a communication resource allocator, and a plurality of operator stations, or consoles. In either system, communication units may communicate to each other or an operator of an operator station via the communication resources which may be carrier frequencies, frequency pairs, TDM time slots, or voice compressed data time slots. Typically, an operator of a console will monitor communications within a particular communication group whether that communication is directed towards the operator or not. This provides the operator with an ability to monitor and assist any user of a communication unit within the particular communication group.
In many situations, several users of different communication units may be communicating at once. The operator of the console will receive these multiple communications and may have difficulty ascertaining the content of the individual communications. As is well known, when multiple persons are talking it is very difficult to ascertain the information being conveyed by each person. This presents a serious problem for an operator of a console in responding to emergency conditions or the like. Under such circumstances, if the operator is unable to understand the communications due to several users talking at once, the operator will be delayed in responding to the emergency conditions. Thus, there is a need for an improved console that will facilitate an operator's ability to monitor multiple communications.
In addition to an operator of a console having difficulty ascertaining information from multiple communications, consoles are not presently equipped to efficiently handle digitally compressed audio such as Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction (VSELP). Present technology consoles can accommodate digitally compressed audio, however, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) is need to process a single communication. Thus, a console would need a DSP for each communication it desired to monitor. At present, a DSP is relatively expensive and incorporation of several DSPs into a console, from a cost standpoint, overshadows the benefits of using digitally compressed audio. Thus, a need exists for a console that will efficiently and economically accommodate digitally compressed audio signals.